ANTH essay

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The Upper Paleolithic Revolution? Life after the Neandertals

Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens slowly swamped the Neandertals, either through

interbreeding or by pushing them to extinction. Whatever happened to the Neandertals, by

25,000 BP there was only one hominid left on earth: Homo sapiens

The great paradox is that while the human species becomes less diverse genetically, with

the consolidation of the genus into a single species and sub-species, cultural variability

increases.

Cultural variability is increased as modern hss spread into new areas of the world:

northern Eurasia, northern europe, the steppes of central Europe. These were very cold and very

challenging environments. It as the cultural capacity of humans to adapt via their technology

that enabled them to survive in these regions.

At the same time there is a tremendous increase in symbolic activity. This comes

principally in various forms of art. There tremendous quantities of portable art: figurines and

engravings. There is cave art, such as the famous wall paintings at Laxcaux and Altamira.

But also, there is tremendous and exhorbitant adornment of functional artifacts, such as

spear throwers. Let’s look first at the artifacts and then we will entertain theories as to why these

changes came about.

Upper Paleolithic behaviors and activities Tool technology

More complex tools: blade tools from indirect percussion, boomerangs,

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spearthrowers, atlatls, bow and arrow

More highly standardized tool types

Increase in the number of different types of tools. Microliths (small chips

& wood)

Increase in the specialization in tool production. Increased regional

variation.

Atlatls, banner stones,

You’ll remember that many of these behaviors and technology can now be seen as having

antecedents in the Middle Stone Age of Africa. The validity of the “Upper Paleolithic

Revolution” is now a topic of discussion. It simply wasn’t the great change that it was once

thought to be.

In Europe, there is a change in some aspects of human behavior after the extinction of the

Neandertals.

Changes in hunting and subsistence strategies: There is a broadened subsistence base appears at

the Mammoth hunter site of Dolni, Vestonice in the Czech Republic at 25,000 BP. The habitual

hunting of healthy adult animals indicates increasing hunting efficiency. There is prey

specialization appears in certain areas.

The biggest change, of course, is all the rock art. The appearance of painted scenes at

sites like Lascaux, Alta Mira, and Chauvet is astonishing. But in addition to rock art, there is a

great elaboration of material culture. There is portable art, such as the so-called “Venus

Figurines” and utilitarian objects such as spear-throwers are decorated with carved images of

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animals. These appearances are often cited as evidence of a “breakthrough” in cognitive

behavior and symbolic expression. I’ll come back to that topic in a moment, after first giving a

brief overview of “art” after 25,000 BP.

Cave Art

The first cave art found was Altamira, Spain in 1879 and was not accepted as

authentic.

Lascaux Cave, France was discovered in 1940 and dates from about 17 kya

Chauvet Cave, France was found in 1995 and dates from about 30 kya.

In addition to these three famous sites, there are dozens more, mostly clustered in the

Pyrenees (see the map in the PowerPoint presentation).

In the past 20 years, much more scientific work has been done on the cave sites. We

know that people worked on them using lamps, and excavators have recovered some of the tools,

such as bone tubes, that were used to spray the paint (some of the images were produced by a

type of “airbrushing” with the bone tubes). Remnants of the ores used to mix colors have also

been found.

Portable Art

Portable art includes many small representations, including the “Venus Figurines.”

Portable art has a much wider distribution than does cave art. Logically so, since caves are not

found everywhere.

Portable art can also include many “functional” classes of material culture, such as spear

throwers. After 25,000 BP spearthrowers, made mostly of antler, were elaborately carved with

animal images. The representations may have been images of the intended victims of the

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weapon. What Happened?

It used to be thought that the appearance of the first “art” coincided with the appearance

of AMH. Therefore, it was previously believed that there was a biological explanation for why

art appeared where and when it did. There are still some scholars who seek a biological

explanation. For example, Richard Klein of Stanford, sees a “neural breakthrough” in which a

unique mutation occurs ca 40,000 BC. That mutation, he believes, lead to enhanced cognitive

and symbolic abilities in AMH populations.

In my view, Klein’s reasoning is highly circular and his conclusions merely restate his

premises. Further, as we saw in the previous lecture, there are antecedents to much of the “new”

behavior in MSA Africa. So the “revolution” was not so revolutionary as it once was thought.

What happened post 25,000 BP was not the first appearance of highly symbolic behavior, but

simply an increase in its occurrence. That fact leads many people to seek a social explanation.

Social Explanations

After the extinction of the Neandertals, there was a population boom of sorts. Not only

are there more sites, but sites are also larger in many areas. Increased sizes for the sites begins

which may be related to the beginnings of sedentism and population increase.

Burials change: the number of burials increases, and there are more elaborate burial ritual

and grave goods such as at Sungir, Russia with thousands of beads in child burials. Multiple

burials occur such as at Dolni Vestonice 25, 000 BP.

There is a new focus on non-utilitarian objects occurs such as musical instruments:

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whistles, flutes, "bullroarers". There is frequently a connection between music and ritual in many

societies, so “ritual” behavior may have changed.

The central point of the social approaches is that increasingly populations and increasing

group size led to emerging social tensions. People were negotiating over group indentities,

individual identities. Social roles were probably being transformed, and gender relationships

(relations between men and women) may have also been changing. In short, the social world was

in flux. In this context, material culture was once of the means by which people negotiated

changing social roles and identities.

The relationship between people and the natural world was also changing. In the period

35,000 - 15,000 years ago, there were two periods of maximal glaciation. Whole species of

animals went extinct, the mobility of human groups decreased. It was a period of tremendous

change, and the theory is that people expressed their concerns via material culture such as art.

Summary

After 25,000 years ago, humans spread throughout the world. As they moved into new

areas, they adapted to local environments and climate. They changed their diets and even their

food procurement technology (such as hunting and fishing implements) to match the local

resources. Those adaptations, in and of themselves, led to cultural diversification. As groups

spread out, the sharing of cultural innovations declined, leading to further cultural diversification.

Eventually, people spread into the Americas and the Pacific Islands.

It is very important to note that these adaptations were primarily cultural. Certainly, there

were biological adaptations as well (which we’ll discuss next week), but they were small

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compared to the cultural side.